A sheltering haven: but sharp reefs and crags
Gave awful welcome unto ships and men,
Who, dashed to pieces on the cruel rocks
In the black night, crowned ills with direr ills.
Some few escaped, by a God or Power unseen
Plucked from death's hand. Athena now rejoiced
Her heart within, and now was racked with fears
For prudent-souled Odysseus; for his weird
Was through Poseidon's wrath to suffer woes
Full many.

But Earth-shaker's jealousy now
Burned against those long walls and towers uppiled
By the strong Argives for a fence against
The Trojans' battle-onset. Swiftly then
He swelled to overbrimming all the sea
That rolls from Euxine down to Hellespont,
And hurled it on the shore of Troy: and Zeus,
For a grace unto the glorious Shaker of Earth,
Poured rain from heaven: withal Far-darter bare
In that great work his part; from Ida's heights
Into one channel led he all her streams,
And flooded the Achaeans' work. The sea
Dashed o'er it, and the roaring torrents still
Rushed on it, swollen by the rains of Zeus;
And the dark surge of the wide-moaning sea
Still hurled them back from mingling with the deep,
Till all the Danaan walls were blotted out
Beneath their desolating flood. Then earth
Was by Poseidon chasm-cleft: up rushed
Deluge of water, slime and sand, while quaked
Sigeum with the mighty shock, and roared
The beach and the foundations of the land
Dardanian. So vanished, whelmed from sight,
That mighty rampart. Earth asunder yawned,
And all sank down, and only sand was seen,
When back the sea rolled, o'er the beach outspread
Far down the heavy-booming shore. All this
The Immortals' anger wrought. But in their ships
The Argives storm-dispersed went sailing on.
So came they home, as heaven guided each,
Even all that 'scaped the fell sea-tempest blasts.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fall of Troy, by Smyrnaeus Quintus

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALL OF TROY ***

***** This file should be named 658.txt or 658.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/658/

Produced by Douglas B. Killings.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these wor